


one day i pray i'll be more than my father's son

by hexicity



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Luke Is A Good Dad, M/M, Sickfic, Therapy, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-16 21:20:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11261229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hexicity/pseuds/hexicity
Summary: He watches Luke mill around the kitchen fluidly, knowing where everything is as if he’s been there a hundred times. And he has, actually, because since they bought the apartment Luke has been checking up on them as if he’s expecting them to burn it down.But Jace had always assumed that Luke checking on them was really just Luke checking on Simon. Jace was there, in the background, but he was never the priority.





	one day i pray i'll be more than my father's son

Jace feels terrible.

He’s freezing to the point where he’s pretty sure his body is burning hundreds of calories just by shivering. His head has filled with some kind of suspicious gunk seemingly overnight and every few seconds he has to keep it contained using one of the tissues from the Star Wars themed box at his side. 

Jace is certain that if Simon were here, his body would feel much better. In fact, he’d argued this point to his boyfriend earlier in the morning. 

“Babe, you know I’d stay with you if I could.” Simon had sighed, sparing Jace an apologetic look with his stupidly cute brown eyes. “But I can’t miss Becky’s birthday. You wouldn’t miss Izzy’s, would you?”

“No.” Jace had admitted, sniffling pathetically and burying his face in Simon’s pillow in anticipation of his departure. “I don’t like feeling like this. I haven’t been sick in...years.”

“When was the last time?” Simon asked him softly, moving to sit on the edge of the bed. He’d reached out to rub Jace’s back, his hand lingering over Jace’s warm skin on the back of his neck and tracing random shapes. 

“Don’t remember.” Jace said. “Before I lived with the Lightwoods. Maybe when I was like, eight? Nine? Thinking is making my head hurt.”

“Okay, alright.” Simon had laughed in a way that was somehow melodic and soothing enough to numb the ache in Jace’s head. “I need to go, sweetheart. I should be back by this evening, and if you need anything just call me. Okay?”

“Okay.” Jace had groaned and thrown a hand over his eyes. “Just leave me to die, then. Love you.”

Simon had claimed to love him back, but now Jace doubts this. His hands blindly glide over his blankets until he finds his phone. The brightness of the screen sears his retinas to the point of temporary blindness, and after that fades he utilizes the tool that Simon claims will solve all of his problems. 

Google advises that someone with a cold eat in order to gain strength and fight off some of the symptoms. A secondary search tells Jace that the ideal food is soup, which Jace vaguely knows how to make. 

So he sits up from beneath his mound of blankets and shuffles into the kitchen, almost tripping from his skewed center of balance and fluffy socks, and begins to prepare his meal. Prepare is a word that he uses lightly, because after a solid five minutes of sweat-inducing work, the most he has to show for is a bowl full of lukewarm water. 

He takes a break to lean against his counter and cough into the sleeve of Simon’s NYU hoodie. Jace wishes his supposedly superior Shadowhunter genes would’ve caught this before he...did. He always thought the old rule that you had to apply an Iratze the moment you started feeling bad was a myth, so when his throat began to itch the night before he’d just ignored it in favor of demolishing Simon at Scrabble. 

A knock at the door interrupts his wallowing. Jace considers ignoring it, but sometimes Clary drops by to raid the fridge. He heads toward the door, hastily brushing over his hair in a futile attempt to appear as less of a disaster. 

He opens the door and steps back in surprise when he sees Luke Garroway, holding a paper bag and smiling cheerfully. 

“Hey, kiddo.” Luke says, making his way past Jace without waiting for an invitation inside. “Simon told me you weren’t feeling well, and I know it’s Becky’s birthday so I brought some stuff.”

“Uh--what?” Jace wishes he could be more eloquent around the man that he respects and admires, but his brain is short-circuiting at the unfamiliar situation he’s been presented with.

“Some medicine, movies, soup,” Luke glances at the bowl of water on the counter, “which would help much more than just drinking that much water.”

“Well...thanks.” Jace reaches his arms out to accept the bag, causing Luke to raise an eyebrow and smile slightly. 

“You think I’m just going to leave you on your own while you’re sick?” Luke asks, apparently just as baffled as Jace is but for an entirely different reason. “Not a chance. Sit.”

Jace moves to the kitchen table and reluctantly takes a seat. He watches Luke mill around the kitchen fluidly, knowing where everything is as if he’s been there a hundred times. And he has, actually, because since they bought the apartment Luke has been checking up on them as if he’s expecting them to burn it down.

But Jace had always assumed that Luke checking on them was really just Luke checking on Simon. Jace was there, in the background, but he was never the priority. 

He feels weird being sick in front of Luke. He always feels tense around him, though Simon insists that there’s no reason to. Jace has joked that it’s because Luke has a gun, but really he knows that it’s because Luke is basically Simon’s father. 

Sometimes Simon talks about his actual father, Joshua Lewis, and the way he talks about him fills Jace with a sense of absolute loss. He’d never even the known the guy, but Simon’s voice was always filled with love and grief. Jace wishes he had the chance to impress Joshua Lewis, and with Luke it’s the same feeling. 

So when he coughs into the crook of his arm in a rather disgusting manner, he kind of wants to die. 

Luke glances back over his shoulder before rooting through the bag. He produces a red bottle and passes it over. “Take some.”

Something shifts in Jace’s chest. Something not cold related. Why does this whole thing feel so foreign to him? If Simon or Alec or Izzy were handing him cough syrup it would feel completely normal, but since it’s Luke it for some reason feels monumentally strange. 

He downs the syrup and gags silently over the taste. Luke makes small talk with him about television, which they have in common because they both love Simon enough to watch his shows. The soup finishes and Luke places it in front of him and it’s the most ridiculous thing in the world, the strangest, but Jace’s eyes well up with tears. 

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Luke asks, sounding lost. “Is it--did I make it--”

“I don’t know.” Jace huffs, scrubbing at his eyes. “This is stupid, I don’t know what’s wrong. Nothing is wrong. Thank you for all the stuff, it’s great, but I don’t want to get you sick so--”

“Jace.” Luke interrupts quietly. “The only experience I have with this kind of thing is from Clary and Simon. So if I’m doing it wrong--”

“You’re not.”

“Well if there’s something I should do differently--”

“There isn’t.”

“When you were younger, what would people do to help--?”

“No one ever did!” Jace declares, and then he and Luke both simultaneously understand. Luke eases off, leaning back into his chair. Jace keeps his eyes locked on the table, determined to never make eye contact with anyone ever again. 

“You know what we have in common?” Luke asks softly. Jace scoffs. 

“We both think Star Wars is boring?” 

“That,” Luke agrees, “and we both know how cruel Valentine was. I get it, Jace. I understand the way his mind worked and the way you--you almost couldn’t stay angry. Even after the terrible things he did.”

“What does that have to do with this?” Jace asks, trying not to be hostile. 

“I was so close with Valentine and I trusted him for so long that I couldn’t interpret the negative emotions that he left me with.” Luke explains. “And I think that’s what you’re going through right now.”

Jace sighs. He looks up from the table, and Luke is looking at him without any judgement or pity. He’s just looking. And Jace sees in him something that’s almost familiar. When anyone else talks about Valentine, their eyes fill with hatred that’s absolute and unwavering. And it makes Jace ache, because he wishes he could feel that. He should be able to hate the man who ruined parts of him so irreparably. 

But he can’t. Not completely. 

“When I got sick when I was younger,” Jace rasps, “Valentine told me that it was just another test to make sure I was worthy. And that I was meant to fight through it. I tried to go to training today and Simon looked at me like I was crazy, and that was the first time I realized that it was so...wrong. Even though I would never let Simon push himself when he’s sick, you know?”

“I know.” Luke assures him. “I taught Simon and Clary how friends were supposed to act. But I didn’t realize how little I acted like that towards my friends for years, and when I figured out the problem, it traced right back to Valentine.” 

“Exactly!” Jace exclaims. He’s started, and now he can’t stop. “You’d never want the people you care about to experience it, but with yourself it’s so...ingrained. So normal.”

“Nevertheless,” Luke shifts forward, “everyone deserves to have a dad who takes care of them when they’re sick. I know it’s going to take time to learn things again, and honestly I’m still re-learning. But I can help you. If you’ll let me.”

Jace nods. “Yeah.”

“Good.” Luke beams, and Jace feels the stifling discomfort from earlier completely drain away. “Now eat your soup.”

**Author's Note:**

> goddddd i love jace and luke both so muuuuuch i wish the show would address their connection over valentine. if u wanna leave a prompt/talk come to my tumblr @simonlewhiss


End file.
